CrowCityDem
CrowCityDem's JournalFlipping The Script: Questions For Sanders Supporters
I was responding to one of the many posts trying to understand how people can support Hillary. I expressed my deep concerns regarding several of Bernie's proposed plans. Let's take three issues, for the sake of brevity.
1) Minimum wage: I think we can all agree that the living conditions in NYC are far different than in a rural town. While both candidates support large increases to the federal minimum wage, there are serious economic questions regarding whether less affluent areas can absorb an increase to $15 as quickly as other areas. Like the bill New York just passed, phasing in the increases, and seeing the economic impact being made before going even further, is a prudent way of making sure that we balance the need for a higher wage with our interest in making sure not to stunt economic growth. Why does Bernie, in his speeches, refuse to acknowledge the potential negative consequences of acting too fast?
2) Fracking: Banning fracking would be an easy solution, as would eliminating nuclear power. But if we do that, we do not currently have the supply of clean renewables to satisfy our energy needs. We would therefore have to either burn more coal for the time being (a worse option for the environment), massively reduce our energy needs (unlikely), or return to buying gas and oil from other countries (which is both costly, and supports unfriendly regimes). The end result is that, until clean power sources scale, we would face large price increases in energy costs that lower and middle class families can't afford. Has Bernie thought through the effects of a complete ban on fracking?
3) College: Free tuition sounds good, I'll admit. But for starters, the plan relies on Republican states to chip in 30% of the cost. That won't happen, as we have seen with the Medicaid buy-in. Furthermore, that plan does nothing to address the costs of room/board, fees, and other ancillary costs that colleges can continue to raise at will to make up the difference. The quality of education would be questionable with millions of new students flooding into the system, and there has not been much talk of how to keep those tuition costs from rising exponentially when the government is paying the bill. This plan would require large tax increases at the state level to cover their share of the cost. Does Bernie have answers for any of these issues? And why did he build a plan that relies on Republicans to opt-in, when the ACA proves they won't?
All three of these fall into the same category; has Bernie thought about what happens if his plans pass? The scope of these concerns make me think he hasn't.
Bernie's 'Distorted Reality'
With Bernie's camp going all in on the racially-tinged criticism that the South 'distorts reality', I think we should return to a salient question about the primary calendar:
Why do Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first?
If Bernie thinks he's only losing because the South got to vote before the all important states of Idaho and Wyoming, let's consider the inverse.
Bernie Sanders might have been out of this race in January if the race did not start out with perhaps the two most unrepresentative states in the country. Crushing forty point losses in truly diverse states would have ended the Sanders candidacy before it started.
Is Bernie complaining about the outsized voice white voters get at the start?
Distorted Reality
With Bernie's camp going all in on the racially-tinged criticism that the South 'distorts reality', I think we should return to a salient question about the primary calendar:
Why do Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first?
If Bernie thinks he's only losing because the South got to vote before the all important states of Idaho and Wyoming, let's consider the inverse.
Bernie Sanders might have been out of this race in January if the race did not start out with perhaps the two most unrepresentative states in the country. Crushing forty point losses in truly diverse states would have ended the Sanders candidacy before it started.
Is Bernie complaining about the outsized voice white voters get at the start?
Regarding Millenials
For all those people who keep saying the Democratic party needs to listen to millennial voters and nominate their choice, because they are the future of the part, keep one thing in mind:
Millennials also gave Justin Bieber a #1 single.
Can we go back to everyone's vote counting the same now?
Closed Primaries, At This Point In A Race, Make The Most Sense
As we get closer to the closed primaries that begin with New York, I keep seeing people arguing that a closed primary is a form of 'disenfranchisement' or 'voter suppression'.
Where do people get the idea that they have the right to participate in a party, when they aren't members of it?
If a state decides they want to allow open primaries, I will disagree with them, but it's within their rights by the rules. Likewise, if a state wants to run a closed primary, I fail to see what makes it undemocratic. So long as everyone knows the rules beforehand, making sure you're a member of a party is not an invasive step to make sure you get to have your say.
There's a reason why closed primaries, especially at this stage of the contest, are a good thing. Imagine we are approaching New York in a tightly contested contest, while the Republicans have already all but selected their nominee. If we had a string of open primaries left, there would be nothing stopping the Republican party from crossing over en masse, and voting in the Democratic primary to make sure the weaker candidate gets put over the top. Does that sound fair?
Or, imagine in four years when they have to find a candidate to run against our incumbent. Should we Democrats be allowed to all go vote in the Republican primary, to make sure that an unelectable candidate gets the nomination? Does that sound fair?
At a certain point in the race, we have enough evidence of how independent voters feel to factor it into our evaluation of our own candidates. But for the protection of our process, we need to shut off the possibility of outside influence to make sure that we are indeed picking out own candidate.
Bernie's upstate ad
Is completely insulting. He promotes his support of family farming with a testimonial by a farmer from... Vermont.
Seriously? He couldn't tailor the ad to NY at all?
Optimism Used To Be An American Hallmark
I find it amusing that the only candidate on either side of the aisle whose campaign is not centered around the idea that America sucks right now is Hillary.
And we call Bernie the optimistic thinker why again?
Questions About Bernie's College Plan
We've all heard Bernie promise free college tuition for everyone, but I have serious questions about the feasibility of his plan that I have yet to hear him address.
1) Do we have the infrastructure to accept the influx of new students and students who would have gone to private universities into the public education system? Or would we have several years of sub-standard education while we get up to speed?
2) What is stopping the universities from double-dipping, and shifting much of the original cost into room, board, and fees? Couldn't they, in theory, get twice the income stream?
3) What is stopping the universities from continuing to raise tuition prices at astronomical rates? If the government is paying the tab, the students and their families won't know or care about the cost. We could wind up getting bilked.
Those concerns are beyond the question of how Republican governors and legislatures will be convinced to pump billions of dollars they don't have into this system.
Sanders: The Lie Exposes The Emptiness
Bernie Sanders lied last night when he quoted Hillary Clinton as having said he was "unqualified" to be President. That is a fact that cannot be disputed.
From the comments that have followed that initial outburst today, both from Bernie and from his campaign team, there is a reading that becomes clear. Someone in the campaign say the Washington Post headline yesterday, and ran with it, without reading the entire article or watching the interview it described. Had they done that, they would have seen that Hillary never used that word, and we could have avoided this trip into the gutter.
What this does is prove the very point that Hillary was making; that Bernie hasn't done his homework on even the core issues of his campaign. If that campaign is only reading headlines, and not actually finding out what the whole story is, it's a damning critique. Bernie will never apologize, because admitting this is humiliating, but it might still be preferable to being publicly branded a liar.
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